“I know you’re a dog person,” she says. “I just hope Harvey’s not afraid of you.”

  “Harvey’s never afraid,” Rachel says. “That cat climbed the water tower. All of the city’s pigeons are terrified of him. Plus, he came looking for you. Harvey’s the bravest soul we know.”

  I remember the time on the roof when Rachel looked for me under the pots. I remember how I thought she was not very smart. And yet right now I think she is the most amazing and brilliant creature in the world. Humans are confusing. They’re so many things at once.

  Why can’t they understand our words? I want to tell Rachel, Thank you so much for calling me brave.

  I leave the dusty boxes, the slipper, and the books. I stand in the bedroom doorway. I remind myself that this is my apartment. Not Rachel’s. My bed and my food dish are here. Even my bathroom.

  I have no reason to be afraid. Danielle sees me and clucks softly. Kuh, tuk, kuk.

  Rachel sits on the couch, which is also mine. I walk over to her. Her red pants are very bright. The way she smells makes my nose itch.

  But I am the bravest soul she knows.

  I nudge my head against her leg. I wait for her hand to touch my ears. Nothing. I remember that sometimes she is not very smart. So I nudge again. Her fingers come down to rub along my back and then down my tail. Normally, I don’t like to have my tail touched, but I forgive her. Then she pulls on the tips of my ears and folds them.

  What’s wrong with her?

  “Don’t fold them,” Danielle says. “Cats only like to be touched behind their ears.”

  I feel Rachel’s fingers rub all around my ears in a gentle way. It is surprisingly nice.

  “You should get a cat,” Danielle says.

  “I want a dog,” Rachel says. “But I haven’t met the right one. The last dog I loved was a calm, good soul.”

  I think of how Chester used to have a human but now sleeps under a drainpipe. I think of his calm soul. Of how good he is. I might not want to live with Rachel, but I’m not a dog. And she probably has a bed. And a can opener.

  She lifts her hand away from me and goes back to her dinner. I walk to the window and press against the glass. I can’t feel the air so I don’t know how soon winter will end. But it always does.

  And then we’ll go up to the roof.

  I will ask Kippy to tell Chester to come here.

  And then Rachel can meet the right dog.

  Only it’s much harder to get out of the apartment than it was to get in it. At first, Danielle goes to the roof without me!

  “Harvey, I just don’t want anything to happen to you,” she says.

  Happen to me? I own that roof. It’s mine. But she keeps me from following her.

  “No, no, no,” she says. “You stay here.”

  I sit at the front door and scratch at it, over and over and over, until one afternoon she scoops me up.

  “Okay, Harvey, I get it,” she says. “But no running off or you will break my heart.”

  I happen to know you can’t break a heart. It’s not like a leg. I press my head into her chest where her heart is. No running off, I say. I promise.

  Then she does the worst thing—she carries me up the stairs! As if I don’t know how to run up those stairs! So embarrassing! Thankfully, she puts me down right before we get out to the roof.

  What if anyone had seen that?

  17

  OLD TIMES

  YET ONCE I’M outside, I forget everything but the way soft blue air pours down on me like water on dry sand.

  “Hello sky,” I say.

  I smell the plants. The earth is still dark, the pots are still orange, and the bushes are still fat. There are no flowers yet, but there will be.

  I stand under the tower and look up. Compared to the ceiling at Danielle’s, the tower is small. So small! I remember all the times it kept me dry, gave me shade, or helped me to hide from Rachel.

  “Hello tower,” I say.

  Danielle digs in her pots. I curl up in the sun and watch. And wait until there’s a swish in the air. And then two more.

  “Hello, Harvey,” Flippy says. “We thought we’d never see you again.”

  “Never, never, never,” Mippy says.

  I ask Kippy, “Will you give Chester a message from me?”

  “No, no, no,” Mippy says.

  “We don’t know where he is,” Flippy explains.

  “Under the drainpipe behind the museum,” I say.

  “He isn’t,” Kippy says.

  “Of course he is,” I say. “It’s his place.”

  “It was his place,” says Flippy.

  “There was a fight for it last winter,” Mippy says.

  “It belongs to another dog now, Harvey,” Kippy says. “I’m sorry we have to tell you that.”

  “A bigger dog,” Mippy says. “A younger one.”

  “One with more teeth,” Flippy says.

  “Is Chester hurt?” I ask.

  The sparrows don’t say anything.

  “Tell me!”

  “I think he was,” Kippy says. “But he ran off into the park before we could find out.”

  My heart is beating into my ears. But it’s not a thump thump whoosh sound. It’s a command: Find. Him. Now.

  I look at Danielle. Cats do not break promises.

  But I need to find Chester.

  “Such a lovely day,” she says, looking back at me. “Just like old times.”

  Danielle makes sure I always have food and safety. She showed me why my sister doesn’t need saving. I know her name.

  Danielle is my list.

  What if I never see her again? A bus could roll over me. Hunger could chase me until I am lost. I imagine life without Danielle, and my whole inside twists and turns in a way that feels like a rip.

  So that is how a heart breaks, I think.

  And yet.

  I must find Chester. It’s one thing to fail at being brave. That’s only embarrassing. But to fail a creature who helped you when you had nothing? That’s unacceptable. And Chester is . . . Chester is worth a thousand broken hearts. He’s worth mine. And now is the time to repay all his kindness.

  “I’ll be back,” I tell Danielle. “I promise.”

  And then I run. I run right down the stairs, past all the landings, and out the door. I run until I am on the sidewalk and back into the city.

  I look up at the sky, now far away. The last time I was on this sidewalk, I was hungry beyond hungry. I hear footsteps and know Danielle is running down the stairs after me. I’m lucky humans are so slow.

  Which way is the park?! Last time, did I go left or right? Think, Harvey, think.

  “Harvey, I can help!” I look up and there’s Kippy. He’s perched on the lowest branch of a scraggly sidewalk tree.

  “Go straight and then left at the corner! I’ll be your lookout.”

  18

  A WALK IN THE PARK

  WHEN NO ONE is chasing you, running down the street is the best part of being a city cat. You’re suddenly part of the smells and the sounds. All the busy, tired, happy, and sad feelings in the air belong to you.

  Turns out that the park is only three quiet streets away from where Danielle lives. There are no cars and no humans as I run. I run until I am the city. I run until the city is me. I run until we are the same.

  In other words, I run into the park.

  “You made it!” Kippy hovers two feet above me. “Now use your nose and find Chester.”

  “It doesn’t work like that,” I say.

  “But you’re a cat—you can smell anything.”

  I sigh and remind myself that even a smart bird has a bird-sized brain. Even so, Kippy must know you have to listen for smells. If we wanted to find yesterday’s milk, it would be as obvious as fifty people shouting. But we are after the smell of an older dog who has lost his safe place, which sounds more like the last breeze before sunset. Not obvious at all.

  Plus, the park is smack in the middle of the city. It smells like everything: grass and trees, playgrounds, buses, lunch, poop, birds, and mustard.

  If I try to find Chester by smell, Kippy and I will be here for three months.

  We have to narrow the area down. I think of two things Chester always said: that if you don’t have your own place, a good spot is under a park bench. And that when you’re scared, you run as far as possible from the spot that scared you.

  I certainly know that’s true from A LOT of experience.

  The drainpipe behind the museum is by the park’s east entrance. We are at the park’s west entrance.

  “Let’s go to the benches by the north entrance,” I say. “It’s the farthest away from the east entrance.”

  “The south entrance is farther away than the north one is,” Kippy says.

  “No, it isn’t.”

  “It is,” he insists.

  Cats do not argue with birds. I simply say, “Follow me.”

  I sniff my way under each of the five benches near the north entrance. They stink of cigarettes and flat soda. Chester smells like warm bread and wet dirt. There’s no trace of him.

  “Maybe you were right,” I say. “Let’s try the south entrance.”

  I keep my eye on Kippy as we walk. He’ll see Chester first because he’s higher up and ahead of me.

  If Chester’s not in the park, we will have to look in all of the city’s food places. It will take a long time to search the whole city, and it’ll be dark by the time I get home.

  Danielle thinks I ran off. And no matter what I do, I won’t be able to explain. All she’ll hear is gibberish.

  I stop walking because of an awful thought: Danielle might not let me back in to live with her. I wouldn’t want to live with a cat who broke a promise. Would you?

  “HEY, MOVE THAT STUPID CAT!”

  I look around. And then I panic. I’m in the middle of a playing field. A playing field full of boys! Two groups of boys are in the middle of that terrifying game where they hit a ball with a stick and then run. One group of boys stands in the field and the other lines up behind a boy with the stick.

  The stick is not sharp or long, but it’s very thick. I’ve heard about humans who use it to hit dogs. It’s one of the scariest weapons I’ve seen.

  The boy who yelled holds the stick over his shoulder. My lungs get tight and my paws feel heavy. I try to move but can’t. It’s like when the bicycle was coming at me. Kippy swishes and swooshes above me.

  “Run,” he says.

  I want to, of course, but fear is fear.

  “I can’t,” I tell him.

  “Maybe he’s lost,” a boy in the middle of the field and close to me says.

  This boy holds the ball in his hand. His other hand is trapped in a big leather envelope. I notice that he’s speaking softly.

  “Nobody move,” he says.

  And although he is talking to all the boys on the field, he keeps his voice low. And in that moment, I know two things:

  1. Chester was right after all: I’ve learned to tell if a human is good.

  2. This is a good human.

  This boy is quiet. He doesn’t come to me. He’s waiting for me to show him it’s okay. Just like Danielle used to do when she’d put the food down and say, Kuh, tuk, kuk. I take a step toward him.

  “Come on, let’s play!” the boy with the stick yells.

  Some of the other boys yell at him to SHUT UP.

  I ignore everything. Including the boy with the big stick. I take another step.

  “Hey, there, buddy,” the boy with the ball says. “You on your way somewhere?”

  I nod. I am on my way somewhere.

  “We’re all going to sit down so that we don’t spook you.” He sits down. “See?”

  “Yeah, cool,” says another boy, and sits. All of the boys in the field sit.

  “I’m not sitting down,” says the boy with the stick.

  “Because you’re a jerk,” says the boy with the ball. To me, he says, “Go on, buddy.”

  There’s something about him—a calm kindness—that makes me think of Chester. I go right to him and press my head against his knee. Thank you, I say. And then I march out of the field while Kippy flits around and around.

  Behind us, I hear the boys’ voices.

  “So weird!” one of them says.

  “Cool,” says another one. Also, “Next batter, you’re up!”

  They’ve totally forgotten about me. We’re free.

  Once we are far from the field, Kippy says, “You’re not afraid of boys anymore.”

  “I’m afraid,” I say, still able to feel how I froze in place, unable to move. “Just not as much as I was.”

  “But you touched one,” he says. “How can you do that if you’re afraid?”

  “You can be scared and still do things,” I remind him. “You’re scared of cats and spend time with me.”

  “Well,” he says. “I can fly higher than you can jump.”

  “Well,” I say. “You notice I did not touch the boy with the stick.”

  “I did notice that,” Kippy says.

  We laugh and keep moving. I walk, and he flies. My body is used to walking from the bed to the couch. Or from the chair back to the bed. All this outdoor walking is like climbing to the top of the bookcase fifty times.

  “Can you see how much farther we have to go?”

  “About the distance of ten streets?” Kippy says. “I’m not sure.”

  The sun is beginning to slip down. It will be dark soon. Chester, please let us find you.

  We pass trees, people, a fountain, more people, more trees, and then the park’s small café. I spent two hours under the tables there once, looking for food. I got yelled at instead.

  That’s the city for you.

  Up ahead is the last group of trees before the south entrance. They make up a little grove that never has food but almost always has rats. Kippy disappears into it and then comes flying straight back. He lands right in front of me.

  “I found Chester! I think he’s being held prisoner!”

  Birds can be very dramatic. I wait.

  “There are all these dogs jumping on his head!”

  “That doesn’t sound like prison,” I tell him, but it doesn’t sound great.

  We come to the edge of the grove. I hear barking, but it’s not Chester’s bark. I sniff the tallest of the trees. Do I remember how to do this?

  My nails grab the tree’s bark and my muscles push. And, presto, I’m high up on a thick branch with lots of leaves to hide behind. Kippy lands delicately on a thin branch well above mine.

  I look down and there’s my Chester. He has a little gray in his muzzle now, but nothing else is different. We’ve found him.

  Only he’s covered in floppy ears and huge paws. The barking is from four squiggly puppies.

  19

  SOMETHING TO LOSE

  HOW CAN SMALL dogs make so much noise? Chester’s quiet and calm, the way I remember. His silence is louder than all the puppy noise. They bark and jump on his head. He doesn’t look happy, but he certainly doesn’t look like a prisoner.

  The puppies have glossy black fur with brown spots on their faces and paws. One of them has white spots mixed in with the brown.

  “Chester!”

  He looks up. And then growls and nips the shoulder of the puppy closest to him. All of them fall silent and sit at attention.

  “Harvey, hello,” he says, as if I appear in a tree every day. “Kippy, good to see you.”

  The dogs all rush to the foot of the tree and howl.

  “This is why I like being high up,” Kippy tells me.

  “Silence,” Chester says. The puppies are quiet, but still stare at me like I am dinner.

  “Can we talk privately?” I ask.

  “I can’t come up,” he says. “And I’m guessing you won’t come down.”

  The puppies immediately lie down.

  “I’d rather not,” I say, although their response to what they thought was a command is impressive. “There’s four of them and only one of me.”

  “They won’t move,” Chester says. “I promise. Come down and we’ll talk.”

  I trust Chester more than I’m afraid of the puppies. I start down the tree, shut my eyes, and jump. I land with a soft thud, little clouds of dust kicking up under my paws.

  The puppies lie between me and Chester. I give them a stern look and stride right past them. After being close to the boys in the park, being near puppies seems easy. Chester sniffs my head.

  “You smell like food and safety,” he says. “I knew you’d find a place and make it your own. Didn’t I always say you would?”

  “Well, my place is indoors,” I say. “And I didn’t fight for it, exactly.”

  I love my place. It is the best place in the city, only I didn’t chase anyone out of it the way my mother did to get our dumpster. But I did get what she never had.

  “I have a human now!”

  And then I tell him everything. I tell Chester about Danielle’s bed, and the ceiling, and the good things to eat. I tell him what Danielle smells like and how she drinks tea and leaves books all over the floor. Stories spill out of me the way water does from a bowl that’s too full.

  Above me, Kippy coughs, reminding me why we’re in the park, far away from my human.

  “She’s why I’m here!” I tell him. “I have a human for you! She’s called Rachel and lives in a safe place!”

  I’m so excited that I’m shouting. Finally, I can repay him.

  “With food and a bed. Danger and hunger will never find you there,” I say. “And she wants a dog. She said so.”

  “Oh Harvey,” Chester says. “I can’t leave them.”

  He points his muzzle to the four puppies, three of whom are trying so hard to be still, they’re wiggling.

  The one with the white-and-brown spots is the only one who looks as if she has no interest in chasing me.

  “They aren’t ready to live alone,” he says.

  “Why are you taking care of them?” I ask. “Where’s their mother?”

  “Dead,” Chester says, in his quiet and calm way. “Hit by a bus, just like yours was.”

 

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